Revelry, Op. 47

for Orchestra

Quick Overview

"Revelry" was commissioned by Susan and Elihu Rose to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Westchester Symphony Orchestra. It received its premiere on April 29th, 1995 with the Westchester Symphony conducted by Anthony Aibel. It is scored for an orchestra consisting of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, strings, and a large assortment of percussion instruments including timpani, cymbals, xylophone, bass-drum, small triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, slapstick, woodblock, guero, breakdrum, police whistle, ratchet, large gong and flexatone.

The piece is actually a series of variations on a twelve-note row, each variation transposed to the pitch-level of the successive pitches of the row itself. A dichotomy exists however in the set/form axis, as the horizontal material is triadically disposed on its vertical plane and, in addition, a secondary, bipartite form is imposed upon the primary variation form. This piece continues a trend that has involved me recently of rendering implicit the pre-compositional materials in the explicit structure of the work.